One of the biggest Irish dictionaries online englishirishdictionary.com has been offline since at least 5th May 2008.
Does anyone know why it’s offline? Unfortunately they have always been quiet about who’s behind the project.
Please do reply if the site is indeed back online.
There are not that many Irish dictionaries available online. There’s Focal.ie, An Foclóir Beag, and EnglishIrishDictionary.com, for example. But that’s about it.
All of these dictionaries are closed. They do not harness the power of the Internet masses, of the large Irish-speaking community online. They don’t make their databases freely available to the Irish language community, either.
Here’s where a collaborative dictionary could help. Such a dictionary would be empowered by its users. It could keep up-to-date with current word usage. Wiktionary is such an effort, but it’s not very easy to quickly search through.
Here’s where Foclóir Gaeilge.ie comes in. It will be an Irish collaborative dictionary. With a simplicity for searching, and a simplicity for adding to it. Simple as that.
The dictionary will be accessible through both Irish and English language interfaces.
Here’s a sneak preview: http://www.focloirgaeilge.ie
Over at Irish-Sayings.com you can currently pick up for yourself a St. Patrick’s Day Pub Cheat Sheet. Print it off at home, and curse as Gaeilge like a made Irish person. It’s only available for this week only!
It includes such classic gems as Póg mo thóin and Pionnta Guinness, le do thoil. While you there, you can listen to several hundred recordings of three native Irish speakers.
It’s only a bit of craic!
Writing Irish with a pen, paper, and your choice of dictionary, is the best way to practice your writing skills. But if you’re writing on your computer, there’s a couple of solutions available. You may find that there is no fast free solution for word processing…
(On the linked page, select Irish/Gaeilge dictionary install.)
This blog is only in its infancy, but I’d still like to point you towards the site’s top 3 articles. Enjoy! Bainigí taithneamh astu!
